Hi! I have created this page to garner the interest of a rockstar programmer who is looking for something really cool to work on in their free time.

What is Aztez?

Aztez (working title) is a beat-em-up game (think Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry, Double Dragon) set in the world of the Aztec people of central Mexico. It's highly stylized in its black and white-ness and I envision it being incredibly over the top. Unfortunately, I am an artist, not a programmer/scripter, and I am no position to make this by myself. So you should help me! We'll have fun and make a totally rad game. Here's a piece of concept art showcasing a small handful of the characters you'll encounter (kill) in this game.

I have done an extensive amount of pre-planning and and I already have a good general idea of how the game will be played and structured. Of course I will share all of this directly with whoever shows enough interest, but the basic idea of the game is that you get inserted into an Aztec battlefield and you are to survive as long as you can against waves of enemies. Alternatively, you can be inserted with the goal of killing an arbitrary amount of special enemies within a time limit. This is not going to be an epic, storied, adventure spanning a whole world-map's worth of levels. This is going to be a disgusting action game you can play for 5 to 20 minutes across a small assortment of fairly compact environments. We can make it epic later. ;)

Additionally, I have created some interactive proof of concept pieces in Unity. Below is the latest one, set in a rich market place environment with a moving character. Note that movement is restriced; you cannot move into and out of the foreground like you could in most traditional beat-em-ups. This is intentional. Use the arrow keys to run left and right and use the up arrow key to jump.

(If you can see the game but nothing happens when you press the arrow keys just click inside the game and try again.)

How will we make this game?

Completely in Unity. For those of you not familiar, Unity is a super powerful development environment and contains everything you, the programmer/scripter needs to program/script and everything I, the artist/designer needs to build characters, environments, and tune things. I have been using it at work for the last two years and every game you see on Blurst.com was created in Unity by me and 3-6 other guys in a couple months each. It's easy to use, facilitates very fast iteration, and can make games as pretty as you want to make them. You can deploy Unity made games to the web, to a Windows standalone build, and to a OSX standalone build. Check it out at Unity3d.com for way more information.

Unity includes several scripting languages, including a version of JavaScript. The Unity API documentation is clear, thorough, and includes example usage for all of the built-in components (the fundamental building blocks in Unity).

What's in it for me?

First of all, I should tell you what's NOT in it for you, in the interest of fairness. Because of my association with Flashbang (we help run the Independent Games Festival), this game cannot under any circumstances be submitted into the IGF competition that takes place every year at the Game Developer's Conference. Other festivals are fair game, though.

Furthermore, this is a very personal project and I'm not making it to sell it. In fact, my plan is to release what we end up making for free in browser form so anyone can play it. If it ends up being awesome and people really enjoy it, we can discuss the possibility of expanding the game so we can monetize it on other platforms (which, FYI, I have experience doing). But all I'm concerned about now is making an awesome game. Do yourself a favor and leave money out of the equation when you decide whether you want to help or not.

On the upside, we get to make an excellent game with no deadlines! From a resource standpoint, I have access to amazing music and sound composers, the super talented guys I work with at Flashbang, and the geniuses at Unity as well. Furthermore, I know a lot of people in the indie world who would be glad to promote our super fun and highly polished game.

How awesome do I need to be?

You need to be pretty awesome. I'm looking for a very competent person with a good attitude who's ready to commit to this game. Like I said before, there is no deadline, but I want to start making this game as soon as possible. I don't neccessarily need someone to work on it everyday (although I will be out of sheer excitement factor) but you do need to be able to communicate to me what you can and can't do. Please be confident you can create a game of this type before contacting me. Keep in mind that little to no engine or tools programming is required. This is going to be 90% gameplay programming. Yay!

All you need to do right now is show me something awesome you've done. I just don't have the time to respond to the inevitable "I don't have anything to show, but I can do it, I swear" types. I would love to see credited games, code samples, or sweet Flash/Unity projects I can play. The best think you can probably do is go download the free 30-day trial of Unity of their website, make something that shows you off, and hit me with it. Provided you haven't already made cool things in Unity. Then just show me those. ;)

My email is at the top of this page. Thanks!

Unless specifically stated, all art created by Ben Ruiz belongs to Ben Ruiz. ©2009